France’s plan to turn ISPs into copyright cops on track

A French copyright official promised that his country would enact legislation …

The French government is pressing ahead with plans to cut off the Internet access for those caught sharing files via P2P. Under a plan announced last November by President Nicolas Sarkozy, those caught sharing copyrighted content via P2P would have their Internet access cut off under a three-strikes-and-you're-offline scheme.

Jean Berbinau, general secretary of French regulatory body Autorité de Régulation des Mesures Techniques (Regulatory Authority for Technical Measures), said that legislation enacting Sarkozy's plan should be passed by summer. "We have to do something, but it is only transitional, only to give time to the industry to adapt and maybe to encourage a new business model," Berbinau said at the MIDEM music trade show, according to the Financial Times.

New business models have already begun appearing without much in the way of help from the French government. DRM is on life-support at Sony and is dead at the other three major labels. Amazon has announced plans to take its DRM-free MP3 store international, and it's possible to listen to just about any song you want via Last.fm's new free streaming service.

That's not stopping France from moving ahead with its plan, which would require ISPs to invest heavily to stay on top of P2P traffic and begin playing the role of copyright police. French ISPs will have to begin monitoring their networks for illegal traffic, which will require additional investments in DPI equipment as well as additional administrative overhead. Those costs are, in turn, likely to be passed on to their subscribers.

Unsurprisingly, the IFPI is a big fan of France's plans to turn ISPs into copyright police. "This is the single most important initiative to help win the war on online piracy that we have seen so far," said IFPI CEO John Kennedy when the plan was first announced. "By requiring ISPs to play a role in the fight against piracy, President Sarkozy has set an example to others of how to ensure that the creative industries remain strong in difficult markets so that they can remain major economic and cultural contributors to society."

The IFPI would love to see other countries follow France's example. In its 2008 report on digital music, the trade group called on ISPs around the world to take up the mantle of content filtering. 2007 was the year ISP responsibility started to become an accepted principle," said the group. "2008 must be the year it become [sic] reality."

If it does indeed become a reality in France this summer, French 'Net users will have to learn to accept the inevitable loss in privacy that goes with having one's traffic monitored by ISPs.